United States Government Interest in Telekinesis and Psychokinesis

US Military Documents, US News Media Reporting, General Research Notes

Online Resource Center by James A Conrad

Hypothetically, for peaceful use, advanced psychokinesis that is powerful enough could be used by a government or organization of governments, perhaps using an army of trained agents acting in unison, to stop planetary extinction-level events like supervolcanoes, Earth-impact asteroids, nuclear power plant disasters, even an extraterrestrial invasion, for which there are no other available technological solutions.

In that respect, human civilization's long-term existence may depend on the acquisition of psychokinetic abilities by at least some of its members.

Fantasy "U.S. Psychic Army" Recruiting Poster

(No endorsement implied; fantasy art)

I created this fictional "U.S. Psychic Army" recruiting poster above on November 5, 2008, adapting it from the famous public domain 1917 "I Want You for U.S. Army" recruiting poster. (Fantasy artwork; no endorsement implied; more information on this image in end credits. Click for larger version.)

Chinese People's Psychokinetic Army. 中国人民念力军 Nearest Recruiting Station. 最近的征兵站 I adapted this artwork from a 1970 China border guard training poster. The text on the small sign: 中国神圣领土, 决不容许侵犯 translates to "China's sacred territory, never allow violations." (Fantasy artwork; no endorsement implied; more information on this image in end credits)

A possible newspaper headline from later this century

"PK Defeats Nukes" - A parody newspaper headline I created based on the famous "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline. Nuclear weapons were first used under US President Harry S. Truman's administration during World War II. Truman is pictured on the left. Psychokinesis (PK) is the only known hypothetical defense greater than nuclear weaponry and all other weapons. Digital artist: James A. Conrad (more information on this image in end credits).

DECLASSIFIED AND UNCLASSIFIED UNITED STATES MILITARY RESEARCH — Documents

DECLASSIFIED: A July 1972 U.S. Department of Defense Intelligence report prepared by the Medical Intelligence Office, Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army, and approved by the Directorate for Scientific and Technical Intelligence of the Defense Intelligence Agency that discusses Soviet research into methods of controlling human behavior. Note: The DIA's copy has blacked-out redacted elements. The CIA's copy is less redacted and is a much larger file size.

DECLASSIFIED: The Rand Organization's (an American think tank) January 1973 briefing paper for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), U.S. Department of Defense, that studies the differences in psychic powers research in the United States and the Soviet Union at the time.

Update: In early June 2011, the U.S. Department of Defense removed this declassified document from its website at the above address. In early September 2011, the above document was discovered back on the DOD's website but moved to the Freedom of Information (foi) subfolder titled "homeland_defense/UFO" even though it does not discuss the subject of UFOs.

Update: A check of the above link on February 11, 2016 indicated that the document had once again been moved, to the address below. It is not known when it was moved; however, it was last saved in the Internet Archive on February 21, 2014.

DECLASSIFIED: A September 1975 intelligence report prepared by the Medical Intelligence and Information Agency, U.S. Army, for the Defense Intelligence Agency that reviews psychic powers research in the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact country of Czechoslovakia. The report also includes descriptions and drawings of "psychotronic rotors."

Update: In a check of the links on this page on February 15, 2014, it was discovered that the U.S. Government had removed this document from the Internet, where it was stored in a Freedom of Information Act folder at the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Update: In a check of the links on this page on January 19, 2017, it was discovered that the U.S. Government had restored this document to the Internet on November 4, 2016, where it is now stored at the Central Intelligence Agency's Freedom of Information Act Online Reading Room (link displayed above).

DECLASSIFIED: A March 30, 1978 intelligence report prepared by the U.S. Air Force, Air Force Systems Command, Foreign Technology Division, for the Defense Intelligence Agency that examines research in East European countries affiliated with the Soviet Union under the Warsaw Pact, in existence from 1955 to 1991. In the pictured excerpts, the "Sergeyev's experiments" refers to Ninel Sergeyevna Kulagina.

UNCLASSIFIED: A December 1980 cover story, pages 47 to 54, about psychic powers and the military that appeared in Military Review magazine, an official publication of the U.S. Army. It was written by Lieutenant Colonel John B. Alexander, U.S. Inspector General Agency, Department of the Army. The magazine article is in the public domain. Publisher: U.S. Army. Military Review home page|Internet Archive

Historical note: Alexander states on his website that "This is the first article in a U.S. military journal to address the use of psychic capabilities." In the quote displayed here upper right, "quantum lead" is likely meant by Alexander to read "qauntum leap" (it may be a typo from the era when typewriters were still used), which means "an abrupt change, sudden increase, or dramatic advance."

Note: The article on Alexander's website consists of high resolution jpg scans of the article pages (1 to 2 MB each). If you prefer to read it on a web page or by way of smaller file size gif scans or a single PDF document, visit the alternate sources below.

DECLASSIFIED: A March 4, 1983 briefing paper by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, declassified through the CIA (final recipient of the file) that accuses magician-skeptic James Randi of "gross distortions" in his claims that his Project Alpha hoax involving two young men with alleged PK powers successfully fooled scientists. This document was declassified by the Central Intelligence Agency on August 7, 2000.

DECLASSIFIED: A December 1983 five-page article, pages 9 to 13, that appeared in the monthly employee newsletter of the National Security Agency. It reported on a lecture by physicist Russell Targ given as part of his participation as one of a number of speakers in a meeting titled "Seminar on Applied Anomalous Phenomena" that took place in Leesburg, Virginia on December 1, 1983.

Targ had recently returned from Russia where he, his Russian-speaking daughter, and a colleague had visited, by way of an official invitation, several Soviet facilities that were studying psychic powers. Other papers presented at the seminar included reports of then current U.S. research in ESP, psychokinesis, precognition, and experiments in remote viewing and sensing by U.S.-based remote viewers.

DECLASSIFIED: A June 7, 1985 research paper by Major W. Gary Norton, U.S. Army, for the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas USA that studies the possible military value of psychokinesis. The report was done as a course requirement.

DECLASSIFIED: A May 1988 research paper by Lieutenant Colonel Dolan M. McKelvy, M.S., U.S. Air Force, for the U.S. Air War College, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, USA, that studies the possible military value of psychokinesis. The report was done as a course requirement.

UNCLASSIFIED:Parameters magazine, Spring 1988, pages 84 to 92, by Lieutenant Colonel Timothy L. Thomas (US Army, Retired), an analyst at the Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Note: the article is in the public domain. The publisher informed me that they do not have digital pictures available of Parameters covers for issues this far back. Publisher: U.S. Army War College. Parameters home page.

UNCLASSIFIED: An August 2004 physics research report by civilian astrophysicist Eric W. Davis, Ph.D, for the Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Materiel Command, Edwards Air Force Base, California, that provides an overview of teleportation research, theories, and reported phenomena, including psychokinetic teleportation.

(12) 2013 "Turkey's Protests: Local Perspectives on Their Causes and Implications" (U.S. Army)

"His staff and pro-government media have reverted to conspiracy theories about who instigated the protests, ranging from Lufthansa, the CIA, and CNN to the American Enterprise Institute, an interest-rate lobby, the Jews, and even, telekinesis, a dark force that aimed to target Erdoğan due to jealousy with his success."

UNCLASSIFIED: The cover story in "OE Watch" magazine (Full title and subtitle: Operational Environment Watch: Foreign News & Perspectives of the Operational Environment), published by the U.S. Foreign Military Studies Office of the U.S. Army, August 2013, Volume 3, Issue #8, page 61, by Karen Kaya mentions the conspiracy theory in Turkish media by pro-government officials that telekinesis was among the possibile methods that were being used to remotely attack the country's leader, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

► "Research into Paranormal Ability to Break Through Spatial Barriers"

Comment: Undated declassified CIA translation (Chinese to English) of a Chinese science article by Chinese authors Song Kongzhi, Li Xianggao, and Zhou Liangzhong. Date of original article not included, but a reference has a 1993 date. Approved for release by the CIA on August 11, 2000.

► "I Resolutely Support Scientific Research in ESP: A Criticism of 'I Resolutely Oppose the Propaganda of the Counter Scientific So-Called "ESP"'"

Comment: Undated declassified CIA translation (Chinese to English) of a Chinese science article. In it, the Chinese writer Nie Chunrong offers a rebuttal to an earlier article. This rebuttal appeared in the Chinese Journal of Somatic Science, Volume 1, Number 4, August 1991. The date of the original article being rebutted is not included. Approved for release by the CIA on August 10, 2000.

US News Media Reports on the US Government's 1980s' Interest in Psychic Powers Research

Selected newspaper columns of American journalist Jack Anderson from 1981 to 1985 archived at news.google.com. The columns discuss the US Government's research of psychic powers in the early 1980s. Included is a quote by United States Representative Charles Rose (b.1939 – d.2012). (Pictured: Time magazine cover, April 3, 1972.)

"They could make every other weapon obsolete," said Congressman Rose about psychic powers such as psychokinesis in 1981 while a member of the U.S. House Select Committee on Intelligence (Democrat, 7th District, Fayetteville, North Carolina). (Note to international readers: "US Congressman" and "US Representative" are interchangeable terms.).

Congressman Rose advocated the idea that the United States Government might one day need to establish a well-funded "Manhattan Project" for psychic powers research similar to the effort put into nuclear weapons development that produced the world's first atomic bomb.

WASHINGTON — If you thought "Star Wars" was just an amusing fantasy, you underestimate the futuristic fantasies of those who run the Pentagon. They're spending millions of real dollars on a dead-serious effort to develop "The Force" as a military weapon. . . .

"Voodoo at defense" Jack Anderson, excerpt February 5, 1981, excerpt:

WASHINGTON — Last month I revealed a Pentagon secret that raised eyebrows from coast to coast. To the thousands of skeptics who wrote in, no, I don't take hallucinogens. The brass hats are, indeed, dabbling in the dark arts.

They are seriously trying to develop weapons based on extrasensory perception. . . .

Representative Charles Rose (D.,N.C.) [Democrat, North Carolina], for example, is a respected five-term congressman and a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. He has advocated psychotronic weapons with the tenacious courage of some death-defying marvel. . . .

By Pentagon standards, not much money has been invested on psychic warfare — a trifling $6 million. Rose thinks the United States should be spending a lot more money on these etheral weapons. "They could make every other weapon obsolete," he told my associate, Ron McRae, urgently.

The congressman is quite correct; the Buck Rogers weapons would certainly make plain old nuclear bombs obsolete — if they should ever work. . . .

"Advocates such as Representative Charlie Rose, a North Carolina Democrat on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, say the possibility of psychic warfare is all too real, and might one day call for a crash program of development similar to the Manhattan Project that built the first atom bomb."

General Research Notes

15 Heroic Feats You Could Do with Super-Psychokinesis

by James A. Conrad, March 14, 2012

Super-psychokinesis or super-telekinesis might be achieved in humans in the future through genetic engineering, a drug, or technology-assisted means. The feats listed below might require one, ten, fifty, a hundred, or a thousand trained agents, who might be civilians or an elite military force under the authority of a government or organization of governments.

Deflect an asteroid or comet on a collision course with Earth.

Prevent a volcano or supervolcano from erupting (by slowing down the vibration rate of atoms in the magma, cooling it).

Reduce the radiation emissions of a nuclear accident.

Reduce the presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Weaken a solar storm affecting the Earth.

Weaken a hurricane (cyclone).

Weaken a tornado.

Weaken a tsunami.

Move an iceberg back to frigid waters.

Move earthquake rubble.

Bring rain to a drought-stricken area.

Bring rain to a fire-stricken area.

Stop a damaged passenger or cargo ocean vessel from sinking or leaking oil.

Guide a falling satellite or other space vehicle in a decaying orbit safely back to Earth.

Guide a just-launched malfunctioning rocket, space vehicle, or missile safely back to Earth.

Nobel Prize Winner Says Psychokinesis Is Possible

Excerpt from the book 10 Questions Science Can't Answer (Yet), Michael Hanlon, 2007, pp. 165-166, Macmillan, New York, ISBN 978-0-230-51758-5. Parenthetical comments appear in the original. Bracketed comments are by James A. Conrad. The physicists use the word "psychokinesis" three times in their research paper.

"In their paper Biological Utilization of Quantum Nonlocality, published in Foundations in Physics in 1991, [Nobel Prize winning physicist] Brian Josephson and Fotini Pallikara-Viras cautiously floated the idea of the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, which Einstein famously dismissed as 'spooky action at a distance' as a possible mechanism for telepathy [and psychokinesis]. ...

"In brief, Josephson and Pallikari-Viras say that it is not impossible that the existence of 'remote influences' suggested by quantum theory (where say, the quantum state of an object like an electron or photon, say, its spin or polarization, may correlate over arbitrarily large distances after they have been split apart) may indicate that the same effect could lie behind the direct connection of minds (telepathy) and between mind and matter (telekinesis)."

"It is well within the laws of physics for a person in the future to be trained to mentally manipulate an electronic sensing device that would give him godlike powers. Radio-enhanced or computer-enhanced psychokinesis is a real possibility." — Physics of the Impossible, Michio Kaku, Professor of Theoretical Physics, City University of New York, 2008, p. 94, Doubleday, New York, ISBN 978-0-307-27882-1.

"The rapid rise of computer power by the year 2100 will give us power like that of the gods of mythology we once worshipped, enabling us to control the world around us by sheer thought. Like the gods of mythology, who could move objects and reshape life with a simple wave of the hand or nod of the head, we too will be able to control the world around us with the power of our minds. We will be in constant mental contact with chips scattered in our environment that will then silently carry out our commands." — Physics of the Future, Physicist Michio Kaku, 2011, p. 26, Doubleday, New York, ISBN 978-0-385-53080-4.

"I WANT YOU U.S. Psychic Army" fantasy recruiting poster: based on the the famous public domain 1917 Uncle Sam "I Want You for U.S. Army" recruiting poster by artist James Montgomery Flagg. This adaptation was created by James A. Conrad on November 5, 2008. For more on the original poster, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Sam. No copyright is claimed by James A. Conrad in this new derivative work. Credit: James A. Conrad / James M. Flagg / US Government.

"Chinese Psychokinetic Army" fantasy recruiting poster: based on a 1970 Chinese government border guard training poster, Chinese artist unknown. Artist of this derivative work: James A. Conrad, March 2014/revised June 2016. Source image: International Institute of Social History (IISH, Amsterdam, Netherlands) / Stefan Landsberger collection. Web page: chineseposters.net/gallery/e13-783.php. In 1970, China had no copyright system. Its first copyright law was enacted in 1991. This noncommercial derivative work is believed to be fair use of elements of the original and presenting China in a positive representation. Similar to the US "Psychic Army" recruiting poster, it is offered as fantasy artwork in the science fiction genre and no endorsement in the real world is implied. Please contact the owner of this website, James A. Conrad, if you are a member of the Chinese government and have any concerns about the use of this fantasy poster, would like it removed, or have a correction or addition to the credit information displayed (name of the original artist, for example). A revised version of the poster was uploaded on June 14, 2016. The original read: "Chinese People's Liberation Army. Nearest Recruiting Station." The revised version reads, more appropriate to the fantasy theme: "Chinese People's Psychokinetic Army. Nearest Recruiting Station." The Chinese characters used might also translate to "Chinese People's Psychokinesis Army." The original poster can still be seen in the Internet Archive version of this web page. No copyright is claimed by James A. Conrad in this derivative work.

"PK Defeats Nukes" parody headline photograph: based on the famous "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline of the Chicago Daily Tribune newspaper dated November 3, 1948. This particular photo was taken after President Harry S. Truman (in office 1945 – 1953) had left office. Credit information for this parody image: Created April 1, 2015, published April 2, 2015 (here and Twitter), James A. Conrad (digital artist)/original photographer, date, event: unknown/collection of the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, US National Archives and Record Administration. Truman Library description: A smiling former President Harry S. Truman (left) holds a copy of the famous Chicago Daily Tribune paper declaring "Dewey Defeats Truman". The others in the photo are unknown, and the event is unknown; but the photo is good clear quality. This was post-presidential. For more, see: https://www.trumanlibrary.org/photographs/view.php?id=38592 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Defeats_Truman No copyright is claimed by James A. Conrad in this derivative work. Credit: James A. Conrad / Truman Library, US National Archives and Record Administration.

Seal of the United States Congress: public domain, subject to 18 U.S.C. s. 713. Use on this website does not imply an official endorsement. (Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons).

Charles Rose photo: Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives (U.S. Government).

Brian Josephson photo: public domain (Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons).

Michio Kaku photo: public domain (Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons).

Website note: This researcher resource page used to be part of the telekinesis laboratory page found at jamesaconrad.com/TK/tklab.html, where it began in 2012. In 2015, during a major website redesign, it was moved to this dedicated location and address.

How to cite this page:

Conrad, James A. United States Government Interest in Telekinesis and Psychokinesis. Available online at https://jamesaconrad.com/TK/government-interest-in-telekinesis-and-psychokinesis.html; accessed [month] [day], [year].